Thursday, August 28, 2014

Paul


I just had to go into the generator room that contains a roaring diesel. On the way I grabbed my ear protection instinctively. I want to protect my hearing.

I attribute this to having met Paul.

I met Paul in Port Townsend, Washington when I was readying my sailboat, Karen Lee, for the trip back to Kodiak.

He was a little older than I am now, a liveaboard, retired and a real character. He liked sailboats, an occasional grog or three and women between the ages of forty and their late fifties.

This meant we had an awful lot in common as I very seldom bothered with women younger than I was and preferred them a bit older than I was. They tended to have less drama in their lives.

He was energetic, always busy and had a very active lifestyle and social life.

He was also as deaf as a post and as a result had a voice like a fog horn. He had no idea how loud he was talking and when he would try and say something quietly it would often come out audible for 200 yards.

I was slapping on a thick coat of now illegal tin based bottom paint on Karen Lee's hull and Paul came by to check out my progress. I had just replaced a thru-hull fitting and he inspected at and complimented me on the job.

Then he started telling me about one of his recent adventures at sea with some woman he had met somewhere along the line. All was good until he started describing her physical attributes just as a pair of women walked past. They likely would have heard nothing at tha range they were passing by but Paul had a voice like a fog horn.

I think they knew that he was deaf because they smirked as they passed by and heard it all.

I didn't know Paul for more than a few days.He was a character and 
I generally found a couple of them in every boat yard I ever passed through. Still, I have to say he effected my life by teaching me to take damned good of my hearing so I didn't end up like him.

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